


Awful

by ensorcel



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Femslash, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 16:18:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18759973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ensorcel/pseuds/ensorcel
Summary: Andy's got a tally. In fact, she's got three. And she also just happens to despise Miranda Priestly.An exercise in power and choice.





	Awful

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bringmayflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bringmayflowers/gifts).



> Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Twentieth Century Fox and Laura Weisberger. Any characters recognized do not belong to me.
> 
> For my great business partner-in-crime, [bringmayflowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bringmayflowers/pseuds/bringmayflowers), happy birthday! 
> 
> Many thanks to [zigostia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zigostia/pseuds/zigostia) for saving this story.

Andy is proud of her tallies. Real proud of them. She loves the way they look, how the colours compliment each other just right, how the red sits perfectly in the middle of her two black ones. And unlike some other people, Andy sees her black tallies as lessons for the future. She considers herself very lucky to even have black tallies at all. It’s either because she’s young, or just incredibly, incredibly naive. (It’s both.)

Her first tattoo is when she’s twelve, and it’s a bright, bright red strip on her left wrist. It burns a little when it first appears, but Andy’s so happy that she’s gotten a tattoo that she can’t care. Her mother cooes over it endlessly, beaming with pride, as her little girl is starting to grow up. Her father stands by, thumb running over his tallies, one scar and one black, to match Andy’s mother’s.

Pining uselessly over a boy one year older than her, Andy is head over heels. But as the crush starts to die down, as they all do, when children get their tallies young, the red never really fades to black, and slowly, ever so slowly, dims.

The next time a tally shows up, it’s going to be her first black.

It starts out red, with the same burning as her first one did, but this time, she’s a little older—just out of high school—and she thinks she knows a little more than she did. (She’s not wrong.)

It’s for a boy named Nate, careful and precise as she, one she followed from high school to college. Thinking it’s just a silly crush at first, Andy tags a chunky, ugly watch onto her wrist, and prays that no one notices.

She’s twenty-one when the red slowly peels away to reveal black.

Gasping, her hand clamps onto her wrist, and the next day, she grabs Nate by the neck and kisses him. It’s fast, messy, and incredibly liberating. Andy doesn’t think she’s ever felt this way before. Leaving him speechless in the middle of the hallway, Andy races to her next class, heart pounding in her chest. She’s absolutely beaming.

So, with her faded red tally and a glowing black one, Andy chases down that journalism degree and runs into the wind with Nate to New York. All her dreams are going to come true here, and as she grasps her boyfriend’s hand, one of them has already.

* * *

Stepping into the glass castle that is that _Runway_ offices, Andy’s tattoos burn, and she can’t help but feel very, very small, as though the walls were going to come crashing down on her. A woman named Emily endlessly chatters in her ear, but her hands are shaking too much to notice, and it isn’t until she notices everyone fleeing their paths that she hears the name “Miranda Priestly”.

“Who’s that?” slips out, and Emily looks at her as though she’s scum on the bottom of her high, high heels. Andy can’t even imagine wearing those.

“I’m going to pretend that you didn’t say that,” the redhead haughtily replies. The click of her shoes rebound in the halls, and Andy has to jog a little to catch up. Rounding a corner, Emily jammers some more, until Andy’s shoved into a corner and Emily snatches up a phone so quickly Andy thought the cord was going to break.

A bald man staunders through, a set of files in hand.

“Gird your loins!”

Her eyes frantically follow the chaos around her, as food is thrown into garbage cans, shoes changed out for six-inch heels, and widespread panic. There was no way a bunch of fashionistas could get this worked up over whoever this “Miranda” woman was. Absolutely no way.

All they did was look at clothes anyways.

But then it comes.

And by “it” Andy means Miranda Priestly. Or who she assumes to be Miranda Priestly.

Crowds part like the red sea as an elegant woman with carefully coiffed hair that even Andy knows must’ve cost hundreds to style struts into the office, carelessly flinging her coat onto Emily’s desk. It must’ve been worth thousands, from the look of it. The bag hundreds, at the very least.  

“Go!” Emily hurries her, and snatching her bag. “Get rid of this, it’s vulgar.”

Sputtering, Andy stumbles into the office, too nervous to notice the grand views from the tall windows.

“Who are you?” the woman nearly whispers, so quietly that Andy almost doesn’t quite catch it.

Fumbling through her answers, Andy leaves a little dejected, quite a bit angry, and a little more than the want to punch Miranda Priestly in the face. She wants this job. Scratch that. She _needs_ this job.

Rushing forward to slap her resume down on Miranda’s desk, Andy gets back into her gusto again. She’s been successful and she knows it, and Miranda needs to know it too.

Interrupted by the bald man again, the anger spits out, and Andy leaves knowing that it was another name she could scratch off her list of possible job offers.

Shoes scuffing on marble floors, Andy nearly slams her fist into one of those fancy walls.

But as she walks through the throngs of well dressed, well spoken, and leaders of the industries around the world, her name is shouted by an articulate, British voice.

“Andrea!”

Whipping around, she smiles, as Emily is gesturing for her to come back.

Prove to Miranda Priestly she will.

* * *

She’s around two months into the job when the next red tally shows up. Like the last two, it’s burning, but unlike the other two, Andy doesn’t have a single clue over who it could be.

Covering it up with makeup so Nate doesn’t notice, Andy spends each morning using her cheap concealer painting over the bright red stripe, along with getting her face primed for the day, and what the hell of an outfit she’s going to wear.

The job isn’t more of a “prove to Miranda” than a “try not to fired”, but Andy hasn’t been fired yet, and she hasn’t made any major fuck-ups in the past few weeks, and she’s gonna see that as a plus.

Over time, Andy starts to forget about the tally. In fact, she’s not even sure why the hell it showed up in the first place. She loves Nate, and both of them share the same, single black tattoo. She’s happy as can be with her job, her relationships, and her life. (So of course this whole soulmate stuff came by to screw it all up.)

Until Miranda fucks her over, yells—what constitutes as yelling for Miranda at least—at Andy, over something she hadn’t even touched, that she had no idea what it even was, does she think she realises.

Grabbing the woman by the neck, Andy firmly plants a kiss on Miranda’s mouth, nipping on her lip a little. Surprisingly, Miranda moans, and Andy snatches a fistful of hair. She slams the door shut, pushing Miranda onto her office desk, sending papers flying.

“You’ve liked this, haven’t you?” Andy seethes, glaring down at Miranda. Shoving her mouth back onto Miranda’s, the editor kisses her back, sliding a hand around her neck. Andy can hear Miranda’s pants, and she’s not sure if it’s the adrenaline rushing through her, but they echo in the room.

“What the fuck have I ever done to you, huh?”

Miranda moans, but a wicked grin spreads on her lips.

“Absolutely nothing.”

But with a tug at her hair, Andy nearly rips off Miranda’s a thousand dollar pants, and has to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. It’s Andy grinning now.

* * *

It happens again. And then again. Sometimes it’s in the office, in her executive bathroom, or a fancy hotel room on Miranda’s credit card. Andy tells herself this isn’t cheating because her heart isn’t in it, that it’s technically part of her _job_. Nate’s got to understand that, right? (He doesn’t, and he shouldn’t.)

Andy comes to enjoy it, listening Miranda get off to her, how in these few minutes a week, Andy Sachs from Connecticut is in complete control of the great and powerful Miranda Priestly.

There’s trouble at home for Miranda, but Miranda never talks about and Andy never brings it up. There’s trouble with the board, but Miranda would never bring that up and Andy doesn’t have the guts, as much of them she does think she has.

She’s tried, to gouge a look at Miranda’s wrist for any sort of indication of a tally, but both are smooth and pale, as porcelain as the day she was born.

Andy tries to wonder what it’s like, to be married to someone without a tally. To be in a relationship where your partner doesn’t bear a tally. Most days she gets why Stephen’s so angry with Miranda. There’s a few where she doesn’t. But today isn’t one of those days.

Andy hasn’t learnt much from _Runway_ , but the biggest thing? Don’t end up like Miranda Priestly.

She wonders if she keeps fucking her, if that makes her like Miranda or the furthest thing possible from the most powerful woman in the industry.

Andy’s not quite sure.

But her tattoo stays red and the black stripe remains framed by the colours.

* * *

Miranda takes Andy to Paris with her. Expected. Emily _had_ broken her leg after all, and Andy’s the only one who’s able to make Miranda come, so of course, it’s expected. Two whole weeks in the city of love in lavish hotels? Why the hell wouldn’t Miranda bring Andy along?

The minute they step into Miranda’s suite, fresh off a 3:00 AM flight, Miranda slams Andy into the wall, nearly clawing at her neck.

“Clothes—” she spits out, almost ripping Andy’s designer shirt, “off!”

Andy plays with her, stoutly keeping herself fully covered and pushes Miranda into the bed.

“Let’s have another go, shall we?” she teases.

Andy always wins with this. Miranda always loses. It’s just how it is.

* * *

“My esteemed colleague, Jacqueline Follet.”

Andy’s heart drops. Her stomach sinks.

_What?_

Immediately grabbing Nigel’s arm, her jaw drops, watching the beautiful woman descend from the stage.

“She’ll pay me back,” Nigel murmurs. Andy looks at him.

“You sure about that?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

(Andy wants to throw up. She wants to scratch the red tally off her arm.)

* * *

“Everybody wants to be us. Everybody wants _this._ ”

No, Andy wants to say. No, not everybody wants this. I don’t want this, she begs to shout, but her mouth is glued shut.

She remembers the taste of Miranda’s lips, and nearly gags.

That’s it.

Once the car stops, she exits the other side, and runs full speed ahead in the opposite direction. She doesn’t know if she’s breathing.

Her phone rings, and she chucks it into the fountain.

No, she doesn’t want this.

Anything but this.  

**FIN.**

 

> _"Let it die. Let there be a new beginning. It's awful. Goodnight." —Charles Bukowski_

**Author's Note:**

> This was a little story I pulled out for my friend's birthday and I hoped everyone enjoyed! Spent a little time experimenting a different dynamic between Miranda and Andy that I haven't really before, and I hope to bring a longer story in the future!


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